A British woman, who is believed to be the world’s oldest living person, has turned 116.
Ethel Caterham, who lives in a care home in Surrey and is Britain’s oldest ever person, took the world title in May following the death of a nun from Brazil.
In a statement, Ethel’s family said she is spending her birthday “quietly with her family” so she can “enjoy it at her own pace”.
Declining interviews with the media, she said any messages or contact from King would be “her one concession”.
Born in Hampshire on 21 August 1909, she was the youngest person to be crowned the world’s oldest woman since 2013.
She’s also among the oldest survivors of coronavirus, having contracted it at 110 in 2020.
Mrs Caterham has outlived her husband Norman, who died in 1976, and both her children Gem and Anne, who died in the early 2000s and in 2020, respectively.
The secret to a long life?
When asked the all-important question of what’s her secret to a long life, she told the Salisbury Journal in May: “Say yes to every opportunity because you never know what it will lead to.
“Have a positive mental attitude and have everything in moderation.”
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When she was 18, Mrs Caterham moved to India to work as a nanny. After meeting her husband, a British Army major, the pair went on to live in Hong Kong and Gibraltar when he was posted abroad.
While in Asia, she returned to her love of children and opened a nursery, before returning to the UK, where she gave birth to her daughters.
